College Hockey:

Sioux Turn Back Game Effort From Crusaders

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — One team featured two finalists for the Hobey Baker Memorial Award. The other reached the NCAA tournament despite being tied for 28th in the latest PairWise Rankings.

In the end, the favorite came out on top.

Top-seeded North Dakota opened the West Regional with a systematic 3-0 victory over Atlantic Hockey champion Holy Cross Friday at the World Arena. North Dakota advances to Saturday’s regional final, which begins at 7 p.m. MST.

“We have one goal in mind, and this is just a steppingstone,” said netminder Jordan Parise. “Until we get to the big game, we can’t really give anyone any credit.”

Zach Parise, one of the Fighting Sioux’s two Hobey Baker candidates, opened the scoring 47 seconds into the contest. North Dakota (30-7-3) scored once in each period and outshot the Crusaders in each frame as well, finishing with a 37-21 advantage in shots.

Ryan Hale assisted on UND’s third goal (photo: Patrick C. Miller).

Parise’s 23rd goal of the season came off assists from Brady Murray and Brandon Bochenski, North Dakota’s other Hobey hopeful.

“At times, it’s almost too easy. You start thinking ‘Geez, we scored on our first shift?’ You want to score on the second and third and so on,” said UND head coach Dean Blais.

“But the short passes that we do so well weren’t there. We tried to make the long pass instead of the short pass. We were maybe a little uptight with the first game, but hopefully tomorrow we can move the puck more effectively.

The Crusaders (22-10-4) nearly netted an equalizer midway through the first period, but Andrew McKay’s point-blank chance was stopped by North Dakota netminder Jordan Parise.

The brawny Fighting Sioux (30-7-3) tightened their defense from there, allowing only three shots in the second period while steadily pulling away.

Holy Cross remained within a goal until the end of the second period, when North Dakota used its power play to pad its lead. Parise hit Bochenski between the circles, allowing the junior right wing to bury his 27th goal of the season. Bochenski is now tied with New Hampshire’s Steve Saviano for the third-most goals in the nation.

North Dakota extended its lead to 3-0 early in the third. Senior alternate captain Ryan Hale, working from the left corner, found Mike Prpich gliding across the crease. Prpich got Holy Cross sophomore goaltender Tony Quesada off-balance before deflecting a shot off Quesada’s pads for his ninth goal of the season.

“All year long we’ve been a third-period team,” said Bochenski. “We only got one goal [in the third], but we had plenty of chances and we really shut them down.”

Fighting Sioux freshman Brady Murray, the third cog of North Dakota’s devastating top line, finished with a pair of assists and has 27 on the season.

Jordan Parise finished with 21 saves in his first NCAA tournament start. It was Parise’s second shutout of the season, and North Dakota coach Dean Blais indicated Parise would start on Saturday.

“I can’t take it all [the credit]. My defense and forwards did a great job of letting me see the puck,” said Parise. “We cleared lanes and let the goaltender see the puck. I think the only bad thing was that we couldn’t complete passes. A win is a win.”

Quesada, who literally became ill on the ice midway through the third period, finished with 30 saves before leaving to a hearty ovation with 3:42 remaining in the game.

“I think they had a lot of energy. It wasn’t a pretty game and it wasn’t racehorse hockey,” said Blais. “In their defensive zone they played good position.

“It was hard to get to the net, and when we did they had a guy [Quesada] who made some great saves. Obviously he got sick, but as soon as they put the other guy [Conway] in there he made a couple of really good saves.”

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Notebook: West Semifinal

Not So Fast

Zach Parise’s goal on North Dakota’s first offensive charge — 47 seconds into the game — was the quickest lead any team took against Holy Cross this season. That’s more than three minutes sooner than when Air Force’s Theo Zacour scored in 4:29 of the first period back in mid-February.

Brady Murray certainly appreciated the effort, but Murray still holds the quickest trigger for the Fighting Sioux this season. The WCHA Rookie of the Year scored in just 13 seconds against Yale in the fifth game of the year.

Home Ice

If North Dakota senior forward Ryan Hale appeared at home on the ice, it’s because he was. Hale grew up in Colorado Springs, and graduated from Palmer High School in 1997.

Hale, the Sioux’s active leader in games played (161), and who recorded an assist against Holy Cross, remains undrafted at this point, but he might have an in — his younger brother, David, plays for the New Jersey Devils.

Winning Is Easy

With Friday night’s win, North Dakota continues to hold the highest winning percentage in NCAA tournament history with a 31-13 record (.704). A win Saturday and the Fighting Sioux will make their 15th Frozen Four appearance, the fifth-most trips there and the team’s first since a runner-up finish in 2001.

Finalists Finish

North Dakota’s pair of Hobey Baker Memorial Award finalists, Zach Parise and Brandon Bochenski, proved the accolades were well-deserved. Along with Parise’s score in the first minute, Bochenski added another goal in the final two minutes of the second period.

Nothing Doing

A shutout loss was not the way the Crusaders wanted their season to end. The 3-0 loss to North Dakota was the first time Holy Cross went scoreless since a 7-0 loss to Maine on Oct. 18.

It was North Dakota goalie Jordan Parise’s second career shutout, which he solidified with a glove save of Tim Coskren’s blue-line ripper with 1:30 left to play.

Rare Air

The Rocky Mountain altitude did no favors for Holy Cross goalie Tony Quesada, who was already feeling under the weather to start the game. Shortly after North Dakota took a 3-0 lead in the third period, a team official tended to a visibly-woozy Quesada for more than five minutes before resuming the game.

He played for another 10 minutes before being relieved by Ben Conway, but Quesada spent television timeouts bent over in a hump or hunched over on one knee.